A Fistfight and a Barking Percussionist—All Part of the Berlin Philharmonic’s Rendition of Bradley’s ‘Tom and Jerry’

There are lyric tenors and coloratura sopranos, and, for the Berlin Philharmonic under Sir Simon Rattle, a barking percussionist.

ClassicFM recently looked back on the Berlin Philharmonic's 2015 performance of Scott Bradley's Tom and Jerry. As the rest of the orchestra navigate a score that draws inspiration from the likes of Arnold Schoenberg and Paul Hindemith, a trio of percussionists deliver various sound effects on an array of instruments and objects. Their antics escalate into mock violence: two percussionists erupt in a fistfight and are pushed away by the third who steps forward to deliver a few hearty woofs. The two percussionists then chase him to the front of the stage as the orchestra closes the work to the audience's wild applause.

Scott Bradley is familiar to generations of people thanks to his scores for MGM and Hannah-Barbera from the 1930s to 50s. This was the time of rich, precise orchestration for television and film, as well as of light music. Although Bradley died in 1977, his music, and MGM cartoons, especially Tom and Jerry, remain widely enjoyed.

Although the members of the Berlin Philharmonic seem to have enjoyed the performance in the video, Bradley was not always part of their repertoire. Their range was initially much narrower, and only began to relax when Simon Rattle joined the orchestra as chief conductor in 2002. In fact, they hired the British conductor out of a need to attract new, younger audience members. Through accusations of "ruining" the ensemble's "special sound," Rattle expanded the orchestra's range while preserving its identity. That has always been his way, even with the City of Birmingham Symphony Orchestra. During his eighteen-year tenure with the CBSO, writes ClassicFM, "Richard Strauss's symphonic poems rubbed shoulders with neglected musicals by Leonard Bernstein; Mozart and Mahler co-existed happily together; Stravinsky and Ravel lined up alongside John Adams and Gyorgy Ligeti."

The Berlin Philharmonic performed Bradley's Tom and Jerry again in 2018, during Rattle's penultimate concert with the ensemble after their sixteen-year partnership. At the end of the piece, the three percussionists approached Rattle to hand him a sparkler.